For Jeanne

As I have gone through the pictures that I wanted to put on this blog I found that most of them were of Jeanne with me or with the family. That is the way Jeanne was--she was a people person and all that knew her loved her and she loved them. She always knew just what to say to help someone with their problems and how to make them feel that they were important. Her and Billy thought that they might come into some money and the only thing they ever talked about doing with that money is what they could do for those who needed it more than they did. I never heard her, even one time, say that they were going to spend any of it on themselves, except that she would buy a ticket to fly home to Utah. She would do anything for anyone and she did a lot to help others. Jeanne loved life and just enjoyed being here doing the things that she did. She did love playing the piano, trouble-shooting the computer, working in her yard, traveling in her motor home, taking her cats for walks, visiting with people, doing Swedish Weave, organizing things, and just relaxing in her back yard watching the squirrels and birds. We will all miss Jeanne and her example of love and her joy of life. I have been so blessed to have been "womb mates" with her and to have shared 61 years having her as my best friend. I know that she is in a much better place and I am so grateful for the gospel to know that we will be able to hold hands again and share our secrets with each other. She has been a great sister all of our lives and I will miss her terribly. Farewell for now my sweet sister, until we meet again. (The pictures are in no particular order, just put in randomly).

What a fun Christmas this year. We started off on Christmas Eve and went to Jeri and Lee's for their traditional Christmas Eve dinner. It is always fun to go and spend that time with them and besides that they always have really good food and played some Canasta. Christmas morning we got up and went to Lorrie and Scott's and watched them open their presents. After that we had Scott's yummy omeletts and Lorrie's yummy caramel pull aparts. They got a wii this year and so we played some games with them on the wii. We left there and went to Jamie and Eric's and played one of their new wii games and ate some of Jamies yummy coffee cake. After Jamie and Eric's we left and went to Jon and Gingers and had a yummy dinner with them and had a good time visiting with them. For Christmas this year the kids gave us a beautiful picture of the Logan temple (it is the temple Gary and I were married in) and they also gave us a book that Ginger had made with pictures from the whole family. They were both beautiful. We talked to our families in Hawii and Georgia and found them well and happy. We spent part of Christmas Eve day with Ro and Larry and Beth and Randi. Talked to Thelma and Helen on Christmas day and found them well also. Thelma has just received her mission call to Paris France Youth Center and leaves Mar. 21. Many blessings of family and friends this whole year. We love you all!

Winter Beauty

I thought we were going to have a brown Christmas here in Spanish Fork. It would snow and then it would rain and the snow would be gone. However, it started to snow on Mon. and kept snowing. We had the driveway cleared out Monday night when we went to bed and when I got up Tues. morning there was 10" of snow in our driveway. It was wet, heavy snow. I went out to shovel and would never have gotten it done except for 3 wonderful neighbor boys that came over and helped me out. Bryce Elhert, and 2 of the Baum boys came over. I was so grateful to them. I love the beauty of the earth when everything is covered in white. I had to take some pictures of our yard so I could remember how beautiful everything was.
It looked like a "Winter Wonderland"



This is between us and the Newmans with their lights on their trees.

Shane cleaning his truck off

I don't think Caddy liked the snow too much. It was soo deep she couldn't even leave the deck.

Playing in the snow

On Nov. 20th we got some snow. I was glad we got even just a little bit because Brandt and his family were still here and Cameron hadn't been around snow for 3 years and Daniel had never seen that white, cold stuff. So even though there wasn't lots of snow, not even enough to build a snowman, they did get to experience it and had fun playing in it.

Oops, Daniel lost his shoe. Brrrr

Bryce Canyon Trip

Gary and I took a trip to Bryce Canyon on Thursday, Friday and came home on Saturday. It was an awesome two day trip. We started out on Thursday and headed to Manti to do a session there. We got there and got our suitcases, holding our clothes, and headed up to the temple. We got almost to the door of the temple and some worker told us that the temple was closed for 2 weeks. Well that was a let down. We hopped back into the car and headed to Bryce Canyon. We stayed in a town called Tropic. Not much there, but it was a pretty little place. We had time to go do some hiking on Thursday. Friday we got up and wanted to do some hiking but it was raining. We drove to a museum and they said there was a trail that we could take to see a lot of hoodoos, so even though it was raining, we got our umbrella and put our jackets on and went on a hike. After that we were too wet and cold that so we went back to the hotel and got warmed up and just vegged out. Saturday came to us with the sun shining. It was a beautiful morning. We gathered our things together, checked out of our hotel and headed down the road to the Kodachrome Basin. There we went on several hikes up the trails and along a path that made me wooshy. I didn't dare look down because I didn't like what I saw. I don't like heigths and so it was a challenge for me, but I made it. Hurrah. When we were done hiking we headed for home and came home most of the way in the rain. We got to Utah Valley and was greeted with snow on the mountains. We had a wonderful trip and got to see some of God's beautiful country. We were grateful we could go.

Rock Candy Mountain

More of Rock Candy Mountain

These are Hoodoos

The old Juniper trees are awesom

This was our hike in the rain. It was pretty slick hiking up to this spot.

Gary in the rain

Gary on one of our trails

See the trail going on ahead of Gary. You can't see how high up

we are. This made me nervous to have walk across and I didn't

dare look down

A cave we saw on our hike

Gary climbing up a slick rock

whew, he made it!

This is what we saw when we came into Utah County--this is Payson Mountain